Monday, December 9, 2013
YouTube for Foreign Language Education? Good or Bad?
When you think of YouTube, I am sure most of you wouldn't think, "Oh! A great educational source!" however why can't it be? On YouTube, one can find videos about almost anything. I realized while doing the canvas inter-activities that YouTube can be a great technology to use in the classroom. In my own canvas I posted a YouTube video that briefly shows different travel places in Switzerland, to show my students that France is not the only French speaking country in the world, and to learn about different cultures. YouTube however can be used to find videos that would help my students with a whole variety of different aspects in my subject area. For example, besides the most common use we may see, which is using YouTube to show a movie to our students (which can definitely be helpful to our students,) YouTube can also be used to show videos that might better explain verb conjugation for example. I have used YouTube tutorial-like videos in the past to help me with my homework in a bunch of different content areas, so why not use YouTube as a teacher too? YouTube could also be used to listen to different pronunciations for students to work on, such as showing the students a YouTube video on how to properly pronounce the French "nasal vowels" which could be difficult for my students as these sounds do not exist in the English language. I think that YouTube CAN and SHOULD be used in the classroom as it can help in not only foreign language classes, but all different classes for a multitude of different lessons. Would you consider using YouTube in your classrooms?
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Chris,
ReplyDeleteI recently just posted about YouTube in the social studies classroom. Like you said, people would not think of it as a useful tool in the classroom. I think this is due to the association it has with all the social media out there that people assume YouTube is a bad source. I disagree with that and i think it can be a great tool in any content area classroom. YouTube has so many different options and choices. Basically anything you search on YouTube they are going to have some kind of video on it. I agree with you that YouTube is not just for movies and clips but tutorial videos can be really helpful. I see how that can be really helpful for you when teaching a language like French. In the social studies classroom it is easy for me to use movie clips and documentaries but geographical tutorials or virtual tours can be effective as well. Thanks for this post I couldn't agree more that YouTube can be useful for students!
I agree that youtube can be very helpful in the classroom. However, when students are home watching a video for school, it is very easy and tempting to click on other non-related video. Like you said, youtube has a video for everything. That comes with some pros and cons. Pros being that many people learn more from watching youtube videos than in the classroom, so why not use youtube in the classroom? And cons being the distractions that comes with youtube. Youtube monitors what kind of videos we watch and has these videos on your home page, and sometimes even in the "related videos" section advertised right next to the video your watching. Talk about temptation. However, I personally feel that the pros overweigh the cons, especially when working with music, which is my content area. There are so many great videos that are very well constructed and put together by professionals. Many-times these videos show concepts in a different, usually more relatable manor. Like you said in you post, when exploring Switzerland in your class it is unrealistic to take a field trip there, so a youtube video is a quick, easy, and efficient substitute.
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